~ Researching Russell Co, Kentucky

Monthly Archives: February 2016

I’m spending the day learning how to use Evidentia and to create group sheets for my family and my parents’ family – which for some reason, I’ve never done.

My goal is to be 100% sourced for every piece of information in the group sheet. Every time I’ve EVER worked on sources for a group sheet, I’ve always had the same questions. And I think the perfectionist in me keeps me from sharing any of my information because I don’t want to be told that I’m doing something wrong.

These questions are not about formatting of citations, although I have plenty of questions on that! But because I don’t plan to ever put my information in any formal publication, I feel like if I select the wrong citation format (for example “Local Vital Records: Certificate” vs. “State Vital Records: Certificate” vs. “State-Level Records: Vital-Records Certificate”), any interested person could still find the document I’m referring to. (But I will admit to spending WAAAAYYYYY too much time trying to decide which format to use – and it drives me crazy because I’d SO much rather be searching for new records!)

So I will now list my questions here to see if anyone wants to chime in and tell me the “correct” way to cite my sources. I feel like these questions are going to be “duh” questions for a lot of you, but I also figure that if I have these questions, I’m probably not alone.

When I look at a record – say, my birth certificate – it contains information for several pieces of information in my group sheet. Father, Mother, birthplace for each of them, my date of birth, my birth location, my middle name. So my question is, should I add seven identical endnotes for each of those facts? 1 “long form” full citation followed by 6 “short form” subsequent citations?

Again, for birth records….I have 3 versions of my own birth certificate. All three of them give the same information that I listed in question 1. So do I cite all three of these documents for each piece of information?

If I’m not to cite every record that I have, how do I decide which is best? The commemorative certificate that the hospital gave my parents has a lot more information than the “legal” certificates I have. Typically, I’d think that a legal certificate holds more authority, but the commemorative certificate was created while the hospital was collecting the information from my parents…information that was then passed on to the board of health for the legal certificate. The information is more specific and includes information not included on the legal certificate.

Do I give a citation for middle names based on my birth certificate? My own, my father, and my mother? Middle names are often included on census records of my ancestors. Do I site those sources as well?

Do I give citations for the name itself to indicate how I know that a person is a legitimate child of the parents on the group sheet?

For ancestors from long ago, do I cite every source that gives a birth location? Birth record, marriage record, death record, every census record, land records, etc?

Do I cite every source that gives the name of a spouse? Marriage record, census records, land records, death records, etc?

If I want to include an analysis for why a specific piece of information was chosen to be included in the group sheet, is that indicated in some way on the group sheet? I am learning how to create these analysis reports in Evidentia and it seems they would be most helpful to include with a group sheet.

The bottom line is this: I want to be thorough, but I don’t want a group sheet that has such a long line of superscripts after each piece of information that it looks like a joke. The examples in my questions are probably extreme examples, but I just don’t know where to draw the line. I think that in my heart, I feel there should probably just be 1 citation for each piece of information with some type of notation that other sources were taken into consideration. If that’s the case – what is the format for that? Does every citation end with “see the attached analysis for additional considerations”?

There is an endless supply of web sites and books that will tell you how to create source citations. Is there a web site that might show examples of a well cited group sheet? I really only want to do this “do-over” once. For that to be the case, I want to do it right and I’m clearly frustrated!

Ah….finally, I have a good portion of a day that I can devote to genealogy! I have been working on a list of steps that I’d like to complete every time I am ready to enter some information into my genealogy files. I have decided to start a new tree with my RootsMagic software and to be much more careful about adding appropriate citations for each fact that I am putting in. I am starting with myself and trying to be as detailed as I can with creating my “Process List”. The list that I have in mind right now is pretty basic and I think I’ll probably be adding to it as I go through the process. For now, the steps will be:

Use Evidentia Software to enter and analyse each source. (I am QUITE certain that this step will be broken down into several more steps, but I have not used the software enough to understand what I’m doing yet.)

Enter the information into RootsMagic.

Use RootsMagic to create the proper citation.

Scan the source if it isn’t currently in a digital format

Save the image in RootsMagic, linking to all appropriate people

Upload the scan/document into Google Drive (where I have already set up my folders with the format that I want to use.)

Update the Group Sheet (already created) if new information has been discovered for the correct family within Microsoft Word. (These are also save in Google Drive.)

Copy the citation in the correct position within the Group Sheet.

Update the Notes document (already created) for the correct family within Microsoft Word. (Also saved in Google Drive.)

Copy the citation in the correct position with the Notes.

See if Ancestry needs to be updated with any new information.

Awesome! Feeling pretty proud of myself and ready to dig in! Now, where is that Evidentia software? It’s not installed on my laptop, so I must have put it on my older laptop. Hmm…nope! Oh well, this is a “starting from scratch to get it right this time” project, so I’ll just reinstall the software. The only problem is that while I have no problem finding the software case, there is no disc inside. And thus begins a 3 hour search in my office. Every drawer, every box, every computer bag, etc. And no luck.

So I was thinking about just biting the bullet and re-purchasing the software. This time, I’d be sure to get the digital download instead of the disc! But wait, I have the registration key inside the software case, so maybe…..sure enough, I was able to download the latest update to the software, enter the registration key and VOILA! I’m ready to go!

Of course, now it’s lunch time….

Well, my plan is to start with my own birth certificate in order to learn how to use the software. I’m planning on looking at the “how to” videos on the website, but I’ve also downloaded the User’s Guide onto my iPad so that I can use that as well.

That’s the plan! Now to put it into practice!

On a side note – let me warn you about something that happened to me. Rather than searching for “Evidentia” in my browser, I just took a shot and put evidentia dot com in the address bar. This took me to a very official looking warning about a virus infection on my computer as well as a never ending audio recording about how I was in danger of having my financial and private information hacked and that I should call a specific phone number immediately. My virus protection software has never opened a web page to warn me about threats, so I knew better than to click anything on the page. After closing the window, I googled for information on the warning and it was not hard to find. Don’t fall for scams like this!

How sad to see how long it’s been since I’ve been able to add an entry to my little blog! Genealogy time is hard to find these days, but I’ve been trying to think of how I can do more research in small (often inconvenient) chunks. I have some ideas, but I could spend so long making a plan that I never actually get anything done!

So today, I’m waiting for a service man to come to measure our house for new carpet. Which means that I don’t want to get involved in any “real” work and then get interrupted. What a perfect time to think about some genealogy!

I decided last year (wow, actually over a year ago now!) that I want to participate in the “Genealogy Do Over” on Facebook. Starting totally from scratch making sure that every fact has a correctly sited source. And how far did I get? Well, let’s just say that I still have a folder sitting on my desk with all of my kids’ birth certificates waiting to be entered! So what better thing to work on in “small chunks”.

This “Do Over” in combination with the brewhaha over Family Tree Maker has shown me that this is the perfect opportunity to start a new tree in new software and to do it correctly this time. To be honest, I’ve never been real big on using software. I’ve always considered Ancestry to be my “master tree” and I’d occasionally sync with my FTM files, but it seemed like that usually ended up putting information into locations that didn’t make sense. For example, if I had a note included with some fact, the note might end up in the location field. And who wants to recheck every field for every person every time you sync your file?

Years ago, I had RootsMagic and I really liked it, so I have decided that I would go back to that. Of course, that software is on a laptop from long ago and since I want to start from scratch anyway, I just went ahead and downloaded a new program.

When I think of a total Do Over, it’s quite overwhelming! I think that I’m going to work on my Mother’s line only for now. I’m going to take the group sheets that I have put together and I’m going to number them starting with my own and working backward by generation. Working my way numerically through the sheets, I will work on entering data into my RootsMagic software, but I will only include information that I can include a source for. I will make sure that I have every document that I’m citing downloaded or scanned and placed in the correct folder in my Google Drive. I suppose that Ancestry will now be my “hints” file. What actual files can I download and source correctly? I’m pretty good about including notes in my Ancestry account to tell when something is a guess or a hint to follow up on later, so I’m not going to try to create a new Ancestry tree. (That plus the fact that it would probably make me cry.)

I also purchased Evidentia Software several months ago, so I suppose I should probably learn how to use that properly!

So I just wanted to say that I haven’t forgotten my little blog! I hope to be able to post more often!